Many structures, including homes, have networks based on coaxial cable (“coax”).
The Multimedia over Coax Alliance (“MoCA™”), provides at its website (www.mocalliance.org) an example of a specification (viz., that available under the trademark MoCA 1.0, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety) for networking of digital video and entertainment information through coaxial cable. The specification has been distributed to an open membership.
Technologies available under the trademark MoCA, other specifications and related technologies (“the existing technologies”) tap into the vast amounts of unused bandwidth available on the coax. For example, coax has been installed in more than 70% of homes in the United States. Some homes have existing coax in one or more primary entertainment consumption locations such as family rooms, media rooms and master bedrooms. MoCA™ technology allows homeowners to utilize installed coax as a networking system and to deliver entertainment and information programming with high quality of service (“QoS”).
The existing technologies provide high speed (270 mbps), high QoS, and the innate security of a shielded, wired connection combined with state of the art packet-level encryption. Coax is designed for carrying high bandwidth video. Today, it is regularly used to securely deliver millions of dollars of pay per view and premium video content on a daily basis. Networks based on the existing technologies can be used as a backbone for multiple wireless access points to extend the reach of wireless service in the structure.
Existing technologies provide a consistent, high throughput, high quality connection through the existing coaxial cables to the places where the video devices currently reside in the home without affecting other service signals that may be present on the cable. The existing technologies provide a link for digital entertainment, and may act in concert with other wired and wireless networks to extend entertainment throughout the structure.
The existing technologies work with access technologies such as asymmetric digital subscriber lines (“ADSL”), very high speed digital subscriber lines (“VDSL”), and Fiber to the Home (“FTTH”), which provide signals that typically enter the structure on a twisted pair or on an optical fiber, operating in a frequency band from a few hundred kilohertz to 8.5 MHz for ADSL and 12 MHZ for VDSL. As services reach such a structure via any type of digital subscriber line (“xDSL”) or FTTH, they may be routed via the existing technologies and the coax to the video devices. Cable functionalities, such as video, voice and Internet access, may be provided to the structure, via coax, by cable operators, and use coax running within the structure to reach individual cable service consuming devices in the structure. Typically, functionalities of the existing technologies run along with cable functionalities, but on different frequencies.
The coax infrastructure inside the structure typically includes coax, splitters and outlets. Splitters typically have one input and two or more outputs and are designed to transmit signals in the forward direction (input to output), in the backward direction (output to input), and to isolate outputs from different splitters, thus preventing signals from flowing from one coax outlet to another. Isolation is useful in order to a) reduce interference from other devices and b) maximize power transfer from Point Of Entry (“POE”) to outlets for best TV reception.
Elements of the existing technologies, such as that available under the trademark MoCA, are specifically designed to propagate backward through splitters (“insertion”) and from output to output (“isolation”). One outlet in a structure can be reached from another by a single “isolation jump” and a number of “insertion jumps.” Typically isolation jumps have an attenuation of 5 to 40 dB and each insertion jump attenuates approximately 3 dB. MoCA™ technology has a dynamic range in excess of 55 dB while supporting 200 Mbps throughput. Therefore MoCA™ technology can work effectively through a significant number of splitters.
Managed network schemes, such as MoCA™ technology, are specifically designed to support streaming video without packet loss providing very high video quality between outlets.
Because digital cable programming is delivered to a structure with a threshold Packet Error Rate (“PER”) below 1 per million, programming transmitted from outlet to outlet within the structure should have a similar or better error rate so as to provide similar viewability. It would therefore be desirable to provide systems and methods for communicating information over the coax in structure networks.